The death of Osama bin Laden last week was met with celebration by many, but it also raised questions about the legal standing of the United States raid that killed the al Qaeda leader. On Friday, United Nations investigators for the Human Rights Council called for the release of more information about the top-secret operation, which U.S. officials insist was lawful.

Princeton University Politics and International Affairs professor Anne-Marie Slaughter, who served as director of policy planning for the U.S. State Department from 2009 to February 2011, discussed the international policy implications of bin Laden’s death at a panel Monday at the Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School, where she was dean from 2002 to 2009.

Q. U.N. investigators have asked for more details about the raid, in part to determine whether it was legal. How do you think the Obama administration will respond?

A. I think we have to be willing to be very open, and the administration has started to be, by providing information. … It’s not just the American people who have an interest here, and we should be open and willing to acknowledge that we may have made mistakes, and it’s up to many different countries to chart a code of what’s permissible in a kind of conflict that is new to us and new to the world.

Q. If the Human Rights Council does determine that the killing of Osama bin Laden was outside of international law, what does that mean for the U.S.?

A. I think that’s very unlikely. I think we should be willing to answer questions, and we should be willing to engage in active diplomacy to ensure that that’s not the outcome. I would say one of the things the Obama administration has done really well is, instead of hiding from the HRC and condemning them for automatically being biased, we made our case.

Q. How does bin Laden’s death affect American foreign policy in the Arab world? And in Afghanistan and Pakistan?

A. I really don’t think we know. Clearly, there are people who are upset. On the other hand, for many people, this will confirm that al Qaeda is weakening, as it has been.
In many ways, it helps change the subject to focus on the Arab Spring, which I think is infinitely more important. … All things considered, I think it is more likely to help us than hurt us.

Q. How does it change our relationship with Pakistan?

A. This is another incident in a very complicated relationship. … We get important information from the Pakistanis, and they get important information from us. We have walked away from them in the past, and the results have not been good. That means we do have to engage with them, and we’re trying to build trust. This makes that much harder to do.

On the other hand, one of the biggest tensions in our relationship is now gone. Secretary (of State Hillary) Clinton said when she went to Pakistan a year ago that she thought some people in the Pakistani government knew where Osama bin Laden was. That was a problem. And that’s gone.

Moreover, killing Osama bin Laden could help shift the ground in terms of the decisions we make with respect to Afghanistan, which is another enormous source of tension with Pakistan. It may also be an opportunity to work out a different relationship with Pakistan and Afghanistan and India altogether, and that could be positive. I would say, in the short term, it obviously does not help. Longer term, it’s very hard to be certain how this is going to play out.

Q. Now that bin Laden is dead, where does the U.S. go from here?

A. In actuality, this shouldn’t have the impact it’s going to have on our policy review with respect to Afghanistan and Pakistan, because he was not shaping daily events. But symbolically, it’s going to cause a major reassessment. Where, I can’t say, but it will be a real turning point.